RANCHERS SHARING THE LAND

Double Circle Ranch – Southeast Arizona

“There is no reason that people and other predators cannot coexist.”

The Double Circle Ranch is a historic cattle ranch in the heart of the Mexican gray wolf recovery area, adjacent to the Apache National Forest, near the Arizona-New Mexico border. The Double Circle is a working “dude ranch” with several hundred head of Texas Longhorn cattle, which are grazed on public land. The ranch prides itself on sustainable practices, using rotational grazing to build the health of the soil, water, and forage. The result is increased wildlife diversity and numbers, including prey for the wolf and other predators.

The ranch owners are pro-wildlife and pro-wolf. Says the owner, “Double Circle Ranch has never had a wolf kill. Cattle and wolves can coexist. But it requires extra time and labor – which of course means extra expense on the part of the rancher. We try to ride and herd our cattle daily. The presence of human activity in the cattle herd seems to prevent wolves from preying on the livestock. Any time you can prevent a wolf kill rather than compensate ranchers for wolf losses, you are helping the wolves adapt to feeding on wildlife instead of livestock. The wolves don’t learn to use cattle as a feed source.”

The bottom line for the Double Circle ranchers is respect for the land, which is not just a place to raise cattle, but an end in itself supporting a complete, whole ecosystem. In the words of the ranch manager, “It is impossible to tell how much the potential loss of this wolf would affect the ecological balance in our country… Extinct is final, and it can’t be changed later.”

Learn More:

Visit the Double Circle Ranch website
Read the NM Wild! Summer 2010 Newsletter article by the owner of the Double Circle